The Chill of Night (32 page)

‘It’s not a good idea,’ she said.

‘What isn’t?’

‘What you’re thinking.’

He smiled. The Maggie radar. Always on target. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s not. As you once noted yourself, I’m taken.’

‘Yes. You are.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Don’t be. Kyra’s a terrific woman.’ The Mr Coffee made hissing noises indicating the brewing cycle was finished. ‘Why don’t you pour us some coffee?’

They went into the conference room, flipped on the bright overhead fluorescents, and sat at opposite ends of the long table.

‘Alright,’ he said, ‘now what is it you think I should know about?’

‘I’m pretty sure Barker’s been eavesdropping on Goff’s apartment. At least an audio bug. I think video as well.’

‘Hidden cameras?’

‘Knowing the guy, yes. He’s the perfect peeping-tom type. Horny. Afraid of women. Afraid of rejection. Probably been ignored or dumped on by every woman who ever laid eyes on him. Then Goff turns up. She’s at work all day, and he has a key to her apartment. How could he resist?’

‘What are you basing this on?’

‘I brought Barker in for an interview. Sat him down. He couldn’t take his eyes off my chest.’

McCabe smiled. ‘It’s a very nice chest.’

‘Try to restrain yourself. Anyway, between Andy sneaking peeks, I managed to wheedle out of him that the photographer of the shots on Lainie’s wall was Nancy Chu.’

‘Of the 3R Chus?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Chu a professional photographer?’

‘No. She’s a software engineer. Says photography’s her hobby but she’s passionate about it.’

‘She’s also talented.’

‘Yes, she is. Apparently Chu and Lainie became friendly about a year ago. She told Lainie about her interest in photography. Lainie asked to see her work. She showed her the industrial shots. Lainie bought the six that are hanging in the apartment. Then she asked Nancy if she’d be interested in photographing her in the nude. Nancy told me she always wanted to try figure work. Lainie made a gorgeous model. So Nancy said sure.’

‘How does Barker know Chu took the shots?’

‘How indeed? The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I had Chu in for an interview right after Barker left. She’s positive Lainie wouldn’t have told him. She only posed on the condition that Chu keep it all absolutely confidential. She also went to some lengths to make sure her face was hidden in the nude shots. Plus, Andy himself told me, more than once, Lainie never said a word to him about the photographs.’

‘Chu didn’t let it slip somehow?’

‘She says not. She said yes, she took the pictures at Lainie’s request, but no, she never said anything to Barker or anyone else about it. In fact, Chu is sure she never even mentioned her interest in photography to Barker. She finds the guy creepy and doesn’t talk to him. Never talks about personal things. She won’t let him into her apartment unless her husband is there.’

‘Did he ever see similar pix hanging in the Chus’ apartment?’

‘There aren’t any nudes. Chu said she does have a couple of the industrial shots hanging there, but they’re not signed, and she insists there’s no way Barker would know she took them.’

‘Where were the two of them when Goff asked her to take the photos?’

‘In Goff’s apartment.’

‘Did you ask Barker how he knew Nancy Chu took the pictures?’

‘No. I didn’t want to tip him off about what I suspected about hidden mikes or cameras.’

‘What do you think Barker was doing last night when I caught him with his flashlight and tool belt?’

‘I think he went up to Goff’s to remove his cameras and mikes before we found them.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. I did a little digging and discovered Andy used to work for a specialty electronics outfit. His job was doing high-end video installations. Getting the right stuff and putting it in would have been right up his alley.’

‘Jacobi didn’t sweep the place for bugs or hidden cameras last night?’

‘Nope. We never thought about it.’

‘So, assuming Barker records what he sees, he may have some pictures of whoever it was who tossed Lainie’s apartment.’

‘Yeah. Among other things.’

‘And if there are videos, they’re in his apartment?’

‘I would think so.’

‘Did you get some people over to sweep Goff’s apartment for the equipment?’

‘No. I want to wait until we have a warrant to search his place as well. If he knows we found the cameras, he’ll destroy any videos he has hidden away in a New York minute.’

‘Wouldn’t he have destroyed them already?’

‘I don’t think so. If he has videos of Lainie, I think they’ll be precious to him. He won’t want to get rid of them. Especially now that she’s dead. He’ll just hide them away really well. Still, I have a uniform watching the apartment for any late-night visits to the dump. Or anywhere else, for that matter.’

‘You requested a search warrant?’

‘Judge Krickstein has the affidavit now. Said he wanted to sleep on it but he’d get back to me first thing in the morning.’

‘Okay,’ said McCabe. ‘Anything else I should know about?’

Maggie slid a black-and-white photo across the table. ‘Kyle Lanahan,’ she said. ‘The hot-dog man. Tasco brought him in for a chat.’

McCabe looked down at a mug shot of a good-looking man in his mid- to late forties. Gray hair. Straight features. Probably a real ladies’ man. ‘Anything?’

‘Nah, I don’t think so. That pic’s about five years old. He did a little time for burglary. Now he sells hot dogs for a living and presumably coke. Both kinds. Anyway, he’s got airtight alibis for both the twenty-third and last Tuesday. Tommy doesn’t think he’s our guy. Neither do I.’

McCabe nodded. ‘Okay. What else?’

‘Sturgis talked to the cleaning crew. Three men. Three women. All Muslim. He needed an interpreter to help with some of them.’

‘How’d he do?’

‘So-so. Five out of the six gave us nothing. Number six tried to be helpful. She’s a Somali woman named’ – she checked her notes, then read out the name slowly – ‘Magol Gutaale Abtidoon. Ms Abtidoon said she noticed someone coming in with them wearing a heavy coat with a hood on his head. All she could see of him was his glasses. Heavy black frames, she said.’

‘Kelly wears glasses like that.’

‘He didn’t have any on in the party photo.’

‘He did when I spoke to him. Let’s show Ms Abitoon some pictures of Kelly plus some other men with black glasses. Maybe something will click.’

‘Okay. How’d you do with Dr Wolfe?’

‘It was an interesting conversation. He said she has no friends he’s aware of. Has no idea where she might be hiding. He thought she might have gone to Sanctuary House. Thinks we ought to search the place. I don’t think so. Kelly said she wasn’t there. I don’t think he was lying, because too many people would have seen her there.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah. He wondered if Abby might not have killed Goff herself.’

Maggie frowned, considering the possibility just as McCabe had earlier. After a minute she said, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I didn’t either. Let’s hear your reasoning.’

‘Okay, Abby’s schizophrenic, and yes, schizophrenics do sometimes go off the deep end, but there’s no way Abby would have done it the way it was done. A neat little hole carefully placed in the back of the neck? Carting the victim back and forth to the mainland on the ferry? Leaving notes from Amos in her mouth? No way. Forget it.’

‘Great minds think alike. I didn’t give Wolfe all those details, but if I did, I think even he would agree.’

‘Is that it?’

‘No.’ McCabe slid the photo from the party down the table to her. ‘See that tall guy in the middle?’

‘What about him?’

‘That’s Todd Markham. According to Wolfe, Goff knew him well enough to hit him up for a big donation to Sanctuary House just before Christmas. Goff and Kelly closed the deal.’

‘How does Wolfe know about it?’

‘He’s on the Sanctuary House board. So was Goff.’

‘How big was the donation?’

‘Ten thousand dollars big.’

‘Not bad.’

‘Not bad at all.’

‘You suppose she was sleeping with Markham, too?’

‘It occurred to me. She was killed in Markham’s house.’

‘Well, I know Markham’s not the killer. His story checks out six ways to Sunday.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. Both his clients separately confirmed they had dinner with him in Chicago Tuesday night. Markham paid for the meal with his American Express Platinum card, and AmEx has a record of the charge. Later, at exactly 11:17
P.M
. Central time, 12:17 Eastern, about the time Abby Quinn was running away from her monster and forty-five minutes or so before she woke up Bowman, Markham ordered a nightcap in the hotel bar. A Macallan single malt, by the way, which cost him fifteen bucks plus tip. You have expensive tastes, McCabe.’

‘Just an educated palate.’

They both sat silently for a moment, weighing the possibilities. ‘On the other hand, Markham did tell you, did he not, that Isabella sometimes comes up to Harts Island in the winter when he’s away on business?’

‘Yes, he did. And if he
was
sleeping with Goff –’

‘And gave ten thousand dollars to Sanctuary House in consideration of that relationship –’

‘And Isabella found out about it –’

‘Could the seventh person on the Monument Square video have been a woman?’

‘Possible. Of course, Abby told Bowman she saw a man.’

‘Yes, but Abby hallucinates. We both know that.’

‘Okay. Let’s get the Markhams up here for prints, DNA, and a discussion.’

McCabe waited while Maggie made the call.

Twenty-Five

Murder/suicide seemed the simplest solution. Quick. Clean. Easy. Two fat birds with one deadly stone. The cops’d buy it. Why wouldn’t they? A pair of crazies. One known to be suicidal, under enormous stress, and, as it turned out, carrying a loaded gun. How would the papers report it?
SCHIZOPHRENIC WOMAN SLAYS FRIEND, TURNS GUN ON SELF
? Yes, that sounded good. In the darkness of the living room, the rest of the story played out in the killer’s mind.

Following an anonymous tip phoned in to the
Press Herald
early this morning, police went to an apartment at 131 Summer Street in Portland, where they found the bodies of two women, Leanna Barnes, 31, of Portland, an inventory clerk at Seamon’s Plumbing Supply in South Portland, and Abigail Quinn, 25, of Harts Island. Ms Quinn worked as a waitress at the Crow’s Nest Restaurant on the island.

In a late-morning press conference, Portland police chief Thomas A. Shockley told reporters that Ms Barnes’s body was found in the apartment’s lone bedroom lying on the bed. She had been fatally shot with a .22 caliber pistol, possibly while sleeping. Ms Quinn’s body was found next to her. According to Chief Shockley, Ms Quinn apparently shot Ms Barnes twice and then took her own life with a single shot to the head, fired from the same weapon. He said evidence technicians had found gunshot residue both on Ms Quinn’s hand and on her head. ‘That pretty well seals it,’ said Shockley.

The weapon used in the shootings was registered to Ms Quinn’s late father, Earl Quinn, a Harts Island lobsterman who passed away in 2002.

Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, head of the Portland Police Department’s Crimes Against People unit, told the
Press Herald
police had been looking for Ms Quinn as a material witness in the earlier slaying of Portland attorney Elaine Goff, whose body was found Friday night on the Portland Fish Pier. Asked by reporters if Ms Quinn was considered a suspect in the Goff murder, Sergeant McCabe would only say, ‘We’re considering that possibility.’

The two victims, both of whom were diagnosed as schizophrenic, met while they were patients at Winter Haven Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Gorham. Ms Barnes was released from the hospital eighteen months ago in June of 2005. Ms Quinn was released two months later. She lived for six months at Sanctuary House, a shelter for runaway teens in Portland, before returning to her mother’s house on Harts Island early last year. According to Dr Richard Wolfe, a psychiatrist on the staff of Winter Haven, Ms Quinn had attempted suicide twice in the past. ‘However,’ he added, ‘we all thought Abby was doing well lately. This tragedy comes as a terrible shock to everybody at Winter Haven who worked with either of these two patients.’ Dr Wolfe continued treating Ms Quinn after her release from Winter Haven at his office on Union Wharf in Portland. Asked if he had any warning that Ms Quinn posed a threat either to herself or anyone else, Dr Wolfe replied, ‘Not to others, no. Abby tried suicide in the past, so I knew that would always be a danger for her, but we had no inkling she represented a danger to anyone else.’ When asked if he thought Ms Quinn might be the killer of Portland attorney Elaine Goff, Dr Wolfe simply replied, ‘No comment.’

Twenty-Six

Maggie dropped McCabe off at his condo on the Eastern Prom around ten thirty. ‘Good night,’ she said. ‘Get some sleep.’

‘Good night yourself,’ he responded. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

McCabe watched the taillights of her car disappear down the Prom, kind of wishing he’d asked her up for a drink. He didn’t go upstairs right away. Instead he dawdled in the parking area, brushing soft snow off the Bird until he couldn’t find any more snow to brush. Then he got the mail and looked at that. Bills, circulars, and Casey’s report card. He thought about walking down the hill to Tallulah’s and getting a drink. The noise and warmth of the place seemed appealing. The idea of watching other people having a good time didn’t.

Finally he climbed the three flights to the empty apartment, flipped on a single lamp, and put the bills on the desk, the circulars in the recycling bin, and the report card, unopened, on Casey’s pillow. Their deal on report cards was she got to read them first. Then she showed them to him. There was never anything to hide since she almost always got As.

Still wearing his overcoat, he foraged in the fridge for something to eat. There wasn’t a whole lot. Just a couple of boxes of frozen lasagna, some wilted lettuce, most of a loaf of bread. There was also half a container of milk, Casey’s tipple of choice, and half a bottle of Sancerre – Kyra’s. He made a mental note to stop at Hannaford’s tomorrow and pick up some groceries before Casey got home from Sunday River. The Palfreys would probably leave the mountain when the lifts closed at four. That meant they’d be back in Portland no later than six.